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retires as defense secretary at the end of this month, ending a
career in government that began 45 years ago.

Gates has served eight presidents in both parties, including as
CIA director and Pentagon boss.

On his farewell foreign trip, Gates talked at length with
Newsweek’s John Barry about his fears for the future of
American supremacy, his relationship with Hillary Clinton, and
his concerns about the more polarized, less experienced
Washington that he leaves behind.

Here are some of the Gates extended comments from the
interview.

On American Supremacy:

“I’ve spent my entire adult life with the United States as a
superpower and one that had no compunction about spending what
it took to sustain that position. And it didn’t have to look
over its shoulder because our economy was so strong. This is a
different time. And the country—and the leadership of the
country, both Republicans and Democrats—face, I think, very
tough choices.”

“To tell you the truth, that’s one of the many reasons why I
think it’s time for me to retire. Because frankly, I can’t
imagine being part of a nation, part of a government—leave
aside Republican or Democrat; that’s got nothing to do with
it—I wouldn’t want to be part of a government that is being
forced to dramatically scale back our engagement with the rest
of the world. I don’t know whether that will happen or not. But
it’s an issue that is going to have to be addressed.”

“My hope is that those fears are unfounded, that we will figure
out a way through this, and a way to sustain our presence
around the world—and even increase it in the Pacific. But I
think there are some very real questions that are going to have
to be answered in terms of the size and shape of the U.S.
military.”

On Hillary Clinton:

“We really didn’t know each other. But after the president
made [his announcement of Clinton as secretary of state]… I
suggested we get together for lunch fairly quickly. We ate in
my office, at a little round table that had belonged to
Jefferson Davis when he was secretary of war, before he went
to the dark side.

And I just told her, based on my experience, that how well
the administration worked would depend a lot on how well she
and I got along together. If we got along, the message would
go to the entire bureaucracy, not just our own bureaucracies,
but the rest of government as well. She totally
understood—first words out of her mouth. So she and I really
set out from the very beginning to have a constructive
working relationship. And at least from my standpoint, it’s
gone well beyond that to a meeting of minds on a lot of the
big issues.”

“Frankly, I really enjoy working with her. Hillary is a
realist and very tough-minded in the way she looks at the
world. She’s got a great sense of humor; she’s very smart,
with a feel for people. She’s got great instincts. And she’s
the only person in the administration I can’t whine to about
my travels.”

“Hillary and I call ourselves the Old Folks Caucus. And I
must say it’s the first time in my life I’ve ever worked for
a president who was 20 years younger than I was.”

On Disputes Inside The Administration:

“I’d be hard-pressed to identify issues where there were big
differences between Defense and State during this
administration. Maybe nuances. But we were completely on
board in terms of New START, and in terms of trying to
improve the relationship with Russia. And we’ve worked very
closely—I would say principally Hillary and Admiral Mullen
[Mike Mullen, the Joint Chiefs chairman] have worked very
closely—with respect to Pakistan. I’m actually hard-pressed
to come up with a consequential issue where the two
departments have been in a different place.”

“Beyond Hillary, I think one of the things that has made a
difference was my strong support for a bigger budget for the
State Department. That really was a man-bites-dog story. I
think I read in the press—and therefore it must be true—that
no secretary of defense had ever been quoted as arguing for a
bigger budget for State. So below Hillary there’s been a
level of goodwill in State towards the Defense Department and
towards me.”

“One thing I worked hard at, particularly for the first six
months to a year [of the Obama administration] was to speak
only when I thought I could make a contribution. I felt it
was important that the president and the rest of the team see
me as part of the Obama Team, not as the holdover from the
Bush administration.

The real risk of a holdover is becoming a real nerdge in
terms of, well this is the way we used to do it, or we tried
that and it didn’t work. I worked really hard not to do that,
but basically to kind of hold my tongue and when we were
looking at policy options and so on to try and look forward….
I just felt the way I comported myself was really critical,
particularly in the first few months.”

On Osama bin Laden:

Gates favored an air strike to
kill bin Laden. He recalled previous failed Special
Forces operations, including Desert One, the abortive hostage
rescue attempt in Iran in 1980. “But I was very explicit with
the president in one of the discussions [of options]. I said:
“Mr President, I want ‘truth in lending.’ Because of
experience, I may be too cautious, you know. I think it’s
important to be honest about that.”

On Afghanistan:

“Yes, the American people are
war-weary. Look. Ten years in Afghanistan is almost twice
as long as any modern war we’ve been in. The real fight in
Vietnam was 1965-66 to 1972, six or seven years. The
Revolution was seven years—and that, incidentally, was the
last time we ever fought a war with an all-volunteer force.
This is 10.”

Afghanistan as another Vietnam? “There is one parallel that I
think is appropriate, and that is, we came to the right
strategy and the right resources very late in the game.
Creighton Abrams had the right strategy in Vietnam, but it
was too late. President Obama, I think, got the right
strategy and the right resources for Afghanistan—but eight
years in. So asking for another year is hard.”

“I’ve always believed that, at the end of the day, there is
no alternative to a political solution [in Afghanistan]. The
question is, on whose terms? And I think we are increasingly
in a position that
reconciliation [with the Taliban] could take place on the
terms of the Afghan government and the Coalition.”

“Talk to our commanders. Their view is that this is the
critical year, because we have taken away all of the
Taliban’s heartland, and if they can’t take it back this
year, and we further expand the security bubble, then—just
like the sheikhs in Anbar province [in Iraq] who had come to
the conclusion that they could not beat us—they come to the
table. I’m not saying it will all be settled by the end of
the year. I’m just saying you could begin a serious dialogue
by the end of the year."

On The Tone In Washington:

“Congress is all over the place. The Republicans are a
perfect example. I mean, you’ve got the budget hawks and the
defense hawks within the same party. And so I think there is
no consensus on our role in the world. Actually, there never
was a consensus, but there was a broad layer, a broad degree
of support across the political spectrum. I think that is
fragmenting.”

“Things have gotten so nasty in Washington… One of the big
changes in the Congress since I first came to Washington is
that all of these folks go home every weekend. They used to
play golf together; their families got to know each other, go
to dinner at each other’s homes at weekends—and these would
be people who were political adversaries. The last surviving
relationship like that, that I can tell, was the relationship
that Alan Simpson and even Orrin Hatch had with Ted Kennedy.
I just don’t think you find any of those now. And if you
don’t know somebody, and you don’t care what they think about
you, then it’s easy to call them names and make all kinds of
allegations.”

“The other thing that has changed is the 24/7 news
cycle—cable, all the talk shows. In the old days, people who
were offensive or nasty or had wacky ideas found it hard to
get exposure on the institutional outlets, whether it was the
big newspapers or the three big networks or CNN. But with
that proliferation [of channels] and blogs and everything
else, everybody can be on all the time. And I will tell you
from personal experience, people will say things on blogs or
in emails that they would never dream of saying in person.”

On Civility:

“I have tried to maintain civil relationships with everyone I
meet—and, even if I violently disagree with them, try to be
respectful. Whether it’s Congress or the press or students at
Texas A&M [where Gates was president before going into
the Pentagon], I try never to condescend. I try to treat
people as intelligent, thoughtful adults, even [laughing] if
they’re 18 years old. And it has an impact—more of an impact
on the kids, actually, than it has on older people. But
things have gotten so nasty in Washington that having someone
who doesn’t take cheap shots at people or demonize them or
question their motives, I think is unusual, and I’ve tried to
be consistent.”

On Iraq:

Will historians judge the
invasion was a mistake? “I don’t know the answer to that.
I do know one thing: one of the supreme ironies is that
during the Arab Spring there is only one functioning
democracy in the entire region. As messy as it is, for the
seven or eight months it took the Iraqis to form a
government, they were arguing with each other and not
shooting each other.”

On Nuclear Proliferation:

“North Korea now constitutes a direct threat to the United
States. The president told [China’s] President Hu that last
year. They are developing a road-mobile ICBM. I never would
have dreamed they would go to a road-mobile before testing a
static ICBM. It’s a huge problem. As we’ve found out in a lot
of places, finding mobile missiles is very tough.”

“The problem with conceding that we will live with the
Iranian or North Korean nuclear programs is that,
particularly with respect to Iran, I think there is a very
high likelihood that if Iran acquires nuclear weapons other
states in the region will feel compelled to have them. I
think it will spark an arms race, a nuclear arms race in the
most volatile part of the world.”

“Similarly, what happens in northeast Asia depends very much
on us. If Japan or South Korea begins to feel that our
deterrence capability and our umbrella of protection is
falling apart—that we’re pulling back—then I think there will
be a temptation for proliferation there as well. So I think
to just sort of fall back to the default of both Iran and
North Korea being nuclear powers, accepting it and figuring
out how to live with it, is very short-sighted. I think it
significantly underestimates, if you will forgive the
expression, the fallout.”

On Libya And The Collapse Of Europe's
Militaries:

“Granted that the Europeans have had the horrors of two world
wars, and it has made them loathe conflict and war. Yet they
continue to live in the real world, a world where there are
in fact security challenges. And they are kind of caught
betwixt and between. It’s been too easy for too many
countries to speak strongly about the
NATO alliance and the need for solidarity in the alliance
and so on.

But too many of them are not just diminishing, but coming
close to eliminating their ability to conduct any kind of
meaningful military operation. We are seeing that in
Libya, where eight of 28 allies are participating. So I
see the danger of a two-tiered alliance: those who fight and
those who talk. And I worry about it. Because the ones who
fight are going to become increasingly resentful of those who
only talk.”

On The Fraying Of The Transatlantic
Alliance:

Gates expanded his views in answer to a question in Brussels:
“What’s changed is the political and economic environment of
the United States… You have a lot of new members of Congress
who are roughly old enough to be my children or
grandchildren.

And they do not have the formative experiences that I have
had… I am, in the active U.S. government today, essentially
the last senior leader who is a product of the Cold War. And
I think the kind of emotional and historical attachment that
American leaders have had to this [NATO] alliance for nearly
65 years is aging out. Decisions and choices are going to be
made more on what’s in the best interest of the United States
going forward… My hope is that the fact that reality is
changing in the United States will get the attention of
European leaders to realize that the drift of the past 20
years cannot continue—not if they want to have a strong
transatlantic partnership with the United States."

On Being The Last Of His Kind:

“I think we are very thin on people who have served both
Republican and Democratic administrations—thin almost to the
point of non-existence. People who have dealt with both sides
of the aisle and are trusted by both, whether or not they
agree; and people who have experience stretching over
multiple administrations. Now Richard Holbrooke is gone, it’s
very difficult to find anyone in this administration whose
experience in government at any senior level in the national
security arena goes back before the Clinton administration.”

“I do worry about who comes after me. When I look back at the
people that I think were seminal during my career, people who
had bipartisan respect and were regarded as wise men after
they left office—guys like George Shultz, Scowcroft,
Kissinger. All those people are in their mid-80s, early 90s.
Larry Eagleburger, another of that breed and a dear friend of
many, many years, has just died. So I’m sort of the youngest
who served in multiple administrations. But I don’t see who
is coming along behind me, who has that kind of experience,
and that worries me.”